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Random Thoughts From An Unusual Company

Tag Archives: IoT

Firstly I’d like to thank Chris Miller from Connectria who wrote and submitted the original abstract then kindly let me have the session when he had a scheduling conflict. Any issues or problems with the content are down to me not Chris so please don’t hold him responsible 🙂

The original abstract was

Enabling Internet of Things (IoT) so your employees and your customers can have a simplified experience with new services and products sounds exciting. In this session, we will dig into the top ten risks that come with the IoT experience. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of IoT and associated threats, there are risks in allowing access to your enterprise resources. Custom firmware, embedded operating systems and wi-fi connectivity of IoT devices offer many possible areas for exploits and misuse. Come explore current security offerings and get a first look at best practices. Walk away with an immediate checklist to benefit your enterprise as it deploys and offers IoT access.

There are several aspects to IoT in the Enterprise which are important to the world of collaborative working

IoT devices generate a huge amount of data. That data has to be analysed and actioned. In a presentation at InterConnect IBM made the point that 80% of data analysts’ time is spent on cleanup and scrubbing not analysis. Although we have had access to big data for many years, most companies simply haven’t gotten their heads around how to work with it. That’s going to become more and more critical as IoT devices start to appear in companies.

Security is a huge issue with IoT devices that are still primarily designed for consumer use. Most devices still transfer data over HTTP (even authentication data) and security has not been a priority. The introduction of blockchain technologies such as the one IBM has developed is the best chance for having secure IoT devices but we’re not there yet.

IoT is really the beginning of Industry 4.0 with 3.0 being “the internet” 2.0 being “the conveyor belt” and 1.0 being “steampower”. Consider that your company is on the precipice of the beginning of the internet. You’ve heard of it, you wonder where it’s going to take you, you might be considering something called email. Well IoT is going to change your business and give you the same kind of opportunities to leap ahead of your competitors as the Internet did. This isn’t something you can choose to ignore.

The technology might not yet be there but now is the time to consider how you would change your business processes if you could access any data and use it in any way. Again, consider the changes in processes pre Internet and now.

Being able to analyse data , redesign business processes on the fly and take action is all in the DNA of those of us who have worked for years in the ICS community.
Data Analysis = WATSON
Business Process Action = WATSON APIs

I will be presenting (hopefully with Chris) on this at Engage in Antwerp on May 9th. You can register for that here